Hi I just want to try this again to see if it will work this time. I'm going to just copy and paste and not attach the document. 21classes
21Classes is an online classroom blog portal that offers educators the services of creating a classroom blog site for their students. Teachers are able to use the free entry-level package or pay an annual fee (USD $ 75) for a premium portal to access the full range of features that are offered by the site. I would suggest that teachers use the free-entry level package as a pilot project to make sure that this portal matches their requirements before they commit to the premium package. The entry-level portal only offers a limited amount of features such as only accommodating 10 student accounts and limited webspace compared to that offered by the premium package. The features provided by the premium 21Classes include:
Control of the students entries
Control of content and students accounts
Independent yet inter-connected student accounts
Privacy settings and spam blockers
Layouts and themes
Student collaboration
Easy reset of account
IT Support
New features and updates are added to improve efficiency and usability.
6 Dos of Classroom Blogging
Chose the right blog portal: The most important aspect of getting started on blogging is to choosing the right portal. For this, the teacher should have a very clear idea of the objectives of blogging. An educational blog is there to provide students with an opportunity to engage with course work in a more interactive manner as well as for the blog to be an educational tool. Teachers should not use a classroom blog purely as a social networking platform. Look for educational blog portals created specifically for classrooms.
Create guidelines and objective: Like with any lesson or activity a teacher should provide their students with clear guidelines, rules and objectives before they start using the blogs. These guidelines can address the intended outcomes the teacher desires, rules on IT etiquette, uses of the blog ect. The teacher should clearly define the uses of the blog so that the users ( students, parents or the blogging community) are aware of the purpose of the blog. The teacher can also get the students to come up with and agree on a code of conduct before they start blogging.
Parental permission and involvement: The teacher should ensure that the parents are informed of the blogging project and that they sign off on allowing their child to be a part of an online community. Parents may have questions and concerns regarding blogging and it may be helpful to send out a letter with some information on blogging. Teachers can also get the parents involved by making them apart of the blog and allowing parents access to the students blogs.
Allow for practice time: Teachers should not assume the all their students come with the same prior knowledge of IT. There may be students who are not very adept at using a computer therefore the teacher should allow some preliminary lessons on building computer skills.
Think of access for all your students: Teachers should use the concept of universal design when creating blogs for their students. The teacher should create a blog that can be accessed by all the students as well as have it be accessible to all the students. If a student has difficulty writing or typing the teacher should look into other ways in which the student can participate in the blog activity ( e.g video or audio recordings). Some students may not have computers at home and therefore time should be provided for them to use school computers when necessary.
Be a part of the blog: Continued teacher involvement is necessary for successful blogging. The teacher should remain a participant in the blog not only to provide feedback or new tasks but as a member who introduces new ideas and topic, provides support and adds to the classroom blog community.
(adapted from: Sturgeon , J. (2008) Five Don'ts of Classroom Blogging. T.H.E. Journal; 35( 2), p.26-30)
Hi ladies,
I just thought I would let you know that I won't be able to access the wiki until Sunday as I am away. I hope there is nothing pressing you want me to do. Otherwise will be in contact Sunday onwards.
Thanks
Chris
I put this in so we can make changes and additions. (I did it a couple of days ago and made changes and it didn't save for some reason) Karyn EDPD 5015 Group Assignment Christina Dillon
Karyn Knowles Nadine Sawnson Manjula Gunawardena Rationale: To provide information for educators on how to use classroom blogs and integrated digital tools as a means of differentiating or making adjustments for students with diverse learning needs within their classrooms.
What about putting in a few quotes in that can be written in boxes to break up the text. e.g. Some scholars suggest digital fluency will be another prerequisite for socialability, lifelong learning, and employment opportunities (Resnick (2000), cited in Huffaker, 2005, p. 93)
Written expression is the most prevalent of all disabilities and is the most complex language skill (Johnson, 1993, cited in Lauffer, 2000, p. 31)
Key Points:
Benefits of Blogging:
Increase engagement and achievement e.g. Are students more motivated to write? Do they write more often? Does writing improve?
Benefits of new media - enable collaborative approaches to reading and writing.
Students can be involved in active learning using multimodal practices of recording their work.
Allows teachers to cater to the needs of all the students in the class (Universal Design [DE2] concept ) √√
Provides an opportunity to continue learning outside the classroom. Explore the issues of equity if students do not have computers at home. What accommodations are made for them? Use local libraries??
Provides a platform for communication e.g the exchange of thoughts and ideas, reflective journals ect.
Creates an opportunity for social exchanges among peers.
Showcase the work of students, can be rewarding for students to see their work displayed.
Creates a link between the classroom and the home environment if parents are able to access the blog.
Having a class bog enables teachers to incorporate some of the principles of universal design into their instruction. For example, explanations for classroom tasks can be given both orally and in writing and can be read or listened to later. Students can access class information prior to or after class or contribute to class discussions at home. Options can be provided for further practice by teachers embedding relevant videos and adding links to learning objects or websites with interactive learning games. Learners can be provided with alternatives for demonstrating what they know, such as videos, podcasts and text. All students can be expected to participate, with the teacher faciltiating their participation as needed. Effective communication can be promoted by supplementing face-face contact with online communication. Teachers can create a welcoming environment for all students by responding to their posts and finding out more about students' interests. By thinking about universal design prior to teaching a unit of work teachers can anticipate students' needs rather than simply react to them. For example, to cater for students with limited vocabulary or background knowledge, images, videos or student-friendly definitions can be included in teacher posts or students can be directed to suitable online dictionaries or relevant websites. On class blogs students can interact with each other as well as the teacher. Feedback can easily be provided on classroom tasks.
Lesson Development:
Competence level of students e.g. Reading level required for reading websites, moving around blogs, computer skills e.g. typing, computer terminology, following instructions
Teacher professional learning eg. look at other class blogs, find how to videos on youtube and websites, networking e.g. maang (Dept Ed & Communities),twitter, wikispaces.
Adjustments need to be made for students who have difficulty accessing the blog e.g Using a tool which reads the text out loud to a student who have difficulty with reading[DE3] .
Using a blog site, which is appropriate for classroom purposes. Easy to use, well structured and not distracting.
Teacher continual participation is needed to engage the students.
Differentiate according to age level e.g in pre-school and primary school the blog may not have the same function and use as in a High school
Implementation:
Before blogging work on class expectations and rules of blogging.
Differentiation e.g. student friendly tutorials, computer buddy system within the class or school, pre-teaching vocabulary and practicing reading key words on flashcards, have key information such user names and passwords on laminated cards
printed instructions to follow or how to videos.
to build fluency/mastery through practice offer before school or lunchtime access to computer room or laptops
teacher can teach a few students a new skill, such as uploading images, then they take on the role of the instructor. By instructing others their own learning is consolidated
teach pre-requisite skills such as using a digital camera, creating folders, and saving images, documents and mp3 files in folders.
Using other technology such as podcasts, videos, audio bite, applications etc on the blog.
Sturgeon, J. (2008). Five don'ts of classroom blogging. T.H.E.Journal, 35(2), 26-30
De Almeida Soares, D. (2008). Understanding class blogs as a tool for language development. Language Teaching Research, 12(4), 517-517-533.
Huffaker, D. (2005). The educated blogger: Using weblogs to promote literacy in the classroom. AACE Journal, 13(2), 91-98.
Mullen, R., & Wedwick, L. (2008). Avoiding the digital abyss: Getting started in the classroom with YouTube, digital stories, and blogs. The Clearing House, 82(2), 66-69.
Burk, A. M. (2010). Write that professional article! English Teaching Forum, 48(4), 12-17.
Clyde, L. A. (2005). Educational blogging. Teacher Librarian, 32(3), 43-45.
[DE1]This term is used in differing sates to mean adjustments. May wish to see how it used in differing states and territories. [DE2]Feel you could make a bigger feature of this in your paper, but up to you. [DE3]What about voice to text??
Link to text to speech sites http://www.squidoo.com/text-speech-programs#module52828672
Notes from Chris: I will print all notes on the wiki to have a hard copy for everyone and perhaps we can just go through it tomorrow night and see if we can use any of it. My research, just notes!!
Written expression is the most prevalent of all disabilities and is the most complex language skill. (Johnson, 1993 cited in Lauffer,2000,p.31). A little dated!! but still relevant.
Areas of difficulty
Students with language learning difficulties encounter problems in idea generation, maturity of themes, organisation, grammar and theme development.
Reasons for using technology and different approaches to developing writing skills
The world has become more complex for educators with a society based on information. Educators are finding they must change the existing paradigm of educating children to a more collaborative, connected through a digitally based tools workplace.
It is important that teachers establish classroom conditions and use pedagogical approaches so that the complex processes and social contexts of writing can be fully developed and supported. There are specific approaches that have been shown to be effective in improving student writing. Some of these include giving students more time to write in the classroom, using peer review and peer modeling to improve students' writing skills, helping students become aware of their readers by publishing their writing, and allowing students to practice different kinds of writing, including more informal free-writing, personal essays, and poetry.
(Ministry of Ed, 2003,pp.102-109)
I think with blogs that there is more opportunity for peer modelling as everybody's work is published on the class blog for all to see. It can regularly be shown and discussed on the IWB. Also students can read the posts of other students, make a comment or ask questions which ecourages the writer to include all the relevant information and improve their writing.
Technology can assist teachers in supporting these effective writing practices in the classroom, including easily publishing student writing to a larger audience. One specific tool that teachers can use that allows students to publish, share and respond to class writing is a web-based publishing platform called a weblog.
Definition of a blog and what a blog can be, the benefits of using a blog.
Weblogs Definition: A Web page consisting of short, frequently updated posts which allow users to publish, collaborate and share information and content over the internet.
(Pang, 2009, p.1)
Blogs can contain many different types of content:
Commentary/news Ideas Photos Poetry Mini essay Project updates Fiction Media Education (Pang, 2009, pp.1-2)
The potential of blogs to improve writing ability: Blogs have the potential to help improve the overall quality of students' written products. These written products include texts generated from sample writing prompts similar to those students may encounter such as poems, expressive writing, or journal entries. Using blogs in the classroom may also help students to better identity themselves as legitimate writers confident in their ability to compose in various contexts. Blogs may also increase the amount of a writing a student produces, both in terms of the length of specific compositions, as well as the number of pieces of writing that are produced.
Blogging has value in terms of developing all sorts of critical thinking skills, writing skills, and information literacy among other things. Blogging offers students opportunities to write on a topic over an extended period of time, to reflect about what they write, and to engage readers and audiences in a sustained conversation. Engaging an audience of not only one's instructor and peers but also the larger, unknown audience on the web is motivating for students since the audience of readers is more authentic.
Research on Kidblog
KidBlog is a comprehensive site designed by teachers for teachers so that students can benefit from the blogging process.
The site allows teachers to give each student their own, unique blog. With simple login menus and no required email address, students can easily access the site. While typing their blogs, spell check ensures that students can see and correct any spelling mistakes. The simple interface is easy enough for primary age students to utilise. All students have to do is enter a title, type what they want and press publish.
Students can experiment with their creativity by adding clip art, headlines and they can even turn their blog into news stories, reporting on their school activities, classroom field trips and family outings.
This site allows teachers to maintain complete control over the blogs. They can even require posts to be approved before publishing through the Class Settings Tab. Visitor access can also be restricted to just class members or guests with a password. Spam filters even block unsolicited comments from outside sources. Students can publish posts and even participate in discussions within a safe classroom blogging community.
Felix, J. ( 2007 ). Edublogging: Instruction for the Digital Age Learner. Published Ph.D., University of California.
Ministry of Education.(2003).Effective Literacy Practice. Wellington: Author
Hi Guys,
This is the rough draft on Edublogs that I had in class last week. It is way too many words, too much info and it's not referenced properly. It is really just my begining research into edublogs and blogs in general. I still have not read all the great articles we have but should have in the next few day and will post any thoughts or ideas I get from them.
Nadine
Edublogs.org
Edublogs.org founded in 2005 by James Farmer can provide teachers and students, with freely available emerging technologies. Victorian schools use Edublogs as NSW schools use BlogEd. Teachers can use them as socially motivating tasks, forming a part of class activities and assignments. Blogs assist students to publish work, represent themselves online, interact with their peers as part of an organic community, and manage their own digital content and identity (Farmer, 2006). Other instructional applications to make note of include portfolios, student peer reviews, book reviews, online poetry, outside reviews, blogging artwork, learning reflections, international exchanges, past blogs, future blogs, writing development, team blogs, and year-end self-assessment
How to Use Edublogs
Edublogs.org is a blogging service specialising in blogs for educational institutions. The site is designed for students, teachers and educators, as well as entire schools, or universities. There is a Quick Press feature which allows users to quickly create a blog post with title, content and tags directly from the user's Dashboard. The Dashboard also allows the user to maintain users, manage posts and manage comments. Users can also change their blog's theme, add widgets and preview their blog from their Dashboard. Edublogs is a free blogging service for teachers, and other educational professionals. They have expanded their free blogging service to include narrower categories of education-related bloggers. They offer learnerblogs for school students, and eslblogs for those involved in teaching English as a second language and English as a foreign language.
Reasons to Use Edublogs
It’s free.
It is safe and secure.
You can embed video, create podcasts and customise your space.
Blogs may be a vehicle for moving students beyond rote learning. By creating smaller, more understandable lessons via blog instruction, students may be able to gain greater context and application of learning into meaningful experiences.
The most distinguishing characteristic of bloggers is their youth. More than half (54%) of bloggers are under the age of 30. Like the Internet population in general, however, bloggers are evenly divided between men and women, and more than half live in the suburbs. Another third live in urban areas and a scant 13% live in rural regions (Lenhart & Fox, 2006 as cited by Felix).
Students enjoy working in collaborative groups which especially helps ESL students learn concepts and also helps them improve their English skills.
Collaboration
Blogging promotes a culture of collaboration. As a social networking tool, blogging helps connect friends, business partners, or other individuals together. This generation of students, has grown up in the Digital Age with aptitudes and attitudes different from their predecessors. These students turn first to the Internet for information and are comfortable interacting online with their peers; they work collaboratively and thrive on interactivity; and they have an expectation of immediacy from their instructors (Felix, 2007). Felix (2007) feels we must understand how learner sees themselves, decide on whether or not they are ready for a more inclusive type of instruction, and then begin instruction based on interaction. Blogging offers this interaction at whatever level of inclusion is most comfortable for the student or teacher and can be used as such at most grade levels.
Collaborative Learning Advocates of collaborative learning assert that the active exchange of ideas within small groups not only increases interest among the participants but also promotes critical thinking, higher levels of thought, and longer periods of information retention (R. T. Johnson & Johnson, 1986; Totten et al., 1991).This instructional technique is also considered a key part of improving the teaching and learning of second language learners and culturally diverse students (Doherty et al., 2003; Duttweiler & Madden, 2001; Thernstrom & Thernstrom, 2003).
Promoting Writing through Blogging
As students put their ideas on paper, they often create new knowledge and develop awareness of new ideas, concepts, and relationships they did not have before they began the process of writing. The active nature of writing provides students with a means for exploring their thinking (Vygotsky, 1986). Writing will naturally broaden the concepts underlying the new words that ultimately become an enduring part of a child’s vocabulary. Writing especially helps to internalize difficult concepts that may otherwise go unlearned through minimum contact with key terms during reading (Pearce, 1984; Pearce & Davison, 1988).
Edubloggers can become empowered by the writing process to collaborate with other students in this writing process at school or at home. This collaboration seems to become a connection with the world. Students are excited at the prospect of communicating with other students inside or outside the classroom. This dual learning process appears to be very appealing to teachers as a way to create additional time for learning in the classroom. Teachers seem to believe blogging changes students from a rigid learning perspective into open-minded writers, highly motivated to not only perform the writing assignment, but also to collaborate with their peers.
How does blogging promote learning? Helps Students find a voice Another benefit to educational blogging (and wiki-writing) is the opportunity for the student to find a personal "voice" and to develop individual interests. Much like journal-writing, blogging gives wings to ideas that otherwise may can stay trapped in the mind. Creates enthusiasm for writing and communications It is not expected that all students will take to blogging (just as not all students enjoy writing), but it is believed that blogging has a unique ability to create enthusiasm for writing and the communication of ideas. A national survey of bloggers by Pew Internet and American Life Project found that blogging is encouraging a new group of writers. 54% of the bloggers surveyed had never published their writing anywhere else. Provides an opportunity to teach about responsible journalism
Because students who are posting blogs reach an audience with their posts, whereas a personal diary can be kept private, students have the opportunity in blogging to learn about the power of the published word. Whereas they might be tempted to criticise or make fun of someone in private conversation or in a diary, they can be taught about responsible journalism, and that the consequences of these kinds of remarks in the new world of the read/write web can be serious and long-lasting.
Hi Guys,
This DET document is called 'What staff need to no about social media and technology' It only has a little bit specifically about blogs but has a lot about using social media such as blogs safely e.g teaching students 'digital citizenship" and according to DET policies. Unfortunately my link does not seem to work but if you goolgle the link or the title it will come up. http://det.nsw.edu.au/socialmedia
Nadine
Manjula
Is it ok if I insert what you typed up so we can add to it?
Hi Chris,
Above is a link to the wiki from last years ICT integrators conference, Henrietta is an amazingly inspirational Yr5 teacher at Roseville College.
She is a huge advocate for using blogs in the classroom. Novel study groups (4 different novels in the class each term) with an online question to discuss on the blog for hwk eachnight.
Henrietta has her own online blog callled the Teacher Cronicles.
From Chris
I also asked a few teachers at school about their experiences with blogging two responses thought it might be helpful.
Similar response to Suzannes email, yes Yr5 do blogs as part of their eportfolio on their own 1-to-1 laptop (using the application iweb).
We have found that by using "sentence starter" strips (i will email scanned copies of these) the girls reflect more on their learning and are given a heads up with what to write on their blog. ie not just a recount of an event, but what did you learn? what did you find interesting? etc... So therefore the girls blogs are more a reflection / self-evaluation of their learning.
As Suzanne said, because the blog is on their own school laptop (rather than an external website e.g. edublogs, glogster or others) it is virtually impossible for the Yr5 teachers to sit with the girls to edit their blog. This is a downfall unfortunately. And something we are trying to overcome and look into where tracking, feedback or changes can be made. Cranbrook were using Weebly last year, however, as James Hagen pointed out the rules say you need to be over 13!
The weaker students enjoy blogging and blogging makes "writing" more fun if it incorporates IT. Blogging is part of their HWK at times too. Will send an example through.We always discuss orally before the girls go away and blog, this gives the weaker students a heads up. We try to use buddy or peer evaluation for assistance with editing at the end of the blogging session or when the HWK task is due.
I have forwarded some emails with what I think are really good examples of how Primary Schools are using blogs. Leopol Primary use blogs for other students in the school to comment on their work / blog entries. This takes blogging to another level and is what I feel would make it more useful and fun rather than just being a personal reflection on their own computer.
Blogs are presented to the class on the activboard, shared with other grades in a buddy situation or screenshots are sometimes included in assemblies or on Kview. The girls sometimes have a choice of items / events to include on their blog. This allows for differientiation and choice. e.g we same over Sem1 you must include at least 5 blogs. Yr6 are doing alot of work on blogs at the moment. I dont know much about it though. I think they are involved in a grant. This is linked to feedback.
2. Our students blog about events throughout the year to complement their ePortfolios. They don't blog in any sort of open forum, so other students don't respond to their writing. I think there are definite benefits to blogging, particularly for those who struggle with handwriting. Quite a bit of mental energy goes into graphomotor function, and if students struggle with this, blogging allows them to free more of this mental energy for writing ideas. The various blog entries give them a focused topic to write about that they already have background knowledge of, so they are able to focus more on the basics of sentence structure rather than using mental energy towards brainstorming ideas to write about. These ideas should already be there, so it's just a matter of formulating them into clear sentences/paragraphs. However, it is more difficult for a teacher to keep up with the editing of these entries, and often when I look over them they are ridden with punctuation errors. ARGH. Checking their blogs happens rarely because it means finding the time to individually conference with each student, and if that happens it is for the bigger projects like information reports, expositions etc. In reality, checking up on their blogging doesn't happen so the blog often turns into an opportunity to free write and get their ideas down..but they may not be proofread and corrected.
From Karyn
With bloged the teacher is the manager and the blog is usually a class blog that everyone contributes to. Bog managers can send posts back to students on their email to be edited. I tend to edit before approving posts if I think the students have tried to edit because I am trying encourage them to write anything at the moment. As students become more confident and experienced I will send posts back to be edited. I noticed with my own daughter that she wasn't too bothered about punctuation in blog posts but when handwriting her punctuation is good. Part of the reason for having a blog is to share your writing with others and to have a real audience. At my school the blogs are not public but we have some blogs that all the students and teachers can see and anyone can comment. The comments go through the manager who decides whether to approve them. I think they allow for differentation because all students can write at their level. Students who are quiet and reluctant to speak are often the ones who write the most.
I put this in to make sure we are on the right track! (Karyn)
Assignment 5.2.2 Practically Speaking
The aim of this asignment is to develop a piece of work (1250 words including references) that highlights an effective educational practice and how it can be adjusted to meets the needs of students with diverse learning needs. This piece of work needs to be written in a manner tha is concise, informative and one your peers would pick up and read (i.e., you are writing for an audience)
Meet with your group and commence reviewing your topic
Outline key features of your topic, locate literature that will assist you develop your paper.
Review similiar articles (e.g. material from Teaching Exceptional Children, Special Education Perspectives)
Prepare in dot point (1 page only)
aim of your paper
To encourage teachers to use class blogs and integrate digital tools into their lessons and suggest ways of differentiating for students with diverse learning needs.????
big ideas to be discussed: make sure it is specific, look at context, grade level
Increase in engagement and achievement e.g. Are students more motivated to write? Do they write more often? Does writing improve? (Find evidence!)
Competence level of students e.g. Reading level required for reading websites, moving around blogs, computer skills e.g. typing, computer terminology, following instructions
Teacher professional learning eg. look at other class blogs, find how to videos on youtube and websites, networking e.g. maang (Dept Ed & Communities),
twitter, wikispaces
4.Differentiation e.g. student friendly tutorials, computer buddy system within the class or school, pre-teaching vocabulary and practising reading key words on flashcards, have key inforamtion on laminated cards e.g. user names and passwords, key words, instructions to follow with screen grabs (this is how I learnt how to navigate the technology at my old school The computer coordinator and DP both had the skills to make up how to posters and instruction booklets)
Benefits of new media - enable collaborative approaches to reading and writing.
Sudents can be involved in active learning, hands on projects then take photos or make videos and write about what they have experienced.
visuals help all students to understand
provide an opportunity to continue learning outside the classroom. Teachers are assigning homework that needs to be completed on their class blog. Equity issue? Some students don't have access to a computer at home.
ideas can be shared and exchanged
questions can be posed and answered
social cohesion among classmates is developed
blogs can be used to promote reading and writing
showcase the work of students
"Some scholars suggest digital fluency will be another prerequisite for sociability, lifelong learning, and employment opportunites (Resnick (2002),cited in Huffaker, 2005, p.93 )
http://www.teachingideas.co.uk/welcome/start.htm (I thought this was good! It also includes games and info for kids to use whilst they are learning to use the internet and also includes e-safety)
glogsteredu caters for different levels of writing ability because students can include as much or as little text as they like and/or include audio files
Podcasting http://www.voki.com/
students can create an avatar and record a message, information, speech, poem etc
Can be embedded in blogs
Books and articles
Comber, B. & Kamler, B. (2005) Turn-around pedagogies Literacy Interventions for At-risk students Primary English Teaching Association
e:update 017 Engaging students in literacy learning with interactive whiteboards Goodwin, K. (see list of online literacy resources on e:lit website)
Professional Associations
Walsh, M. (2011) Multimodal Literacy Researching Classroom Practice Primary English Teachers Association
By beginning of week 4: Submit overview of paper in class.
21classes
21Classes is an online classroom blog portal that offers educators the services of creating a classroom blog site for their students. Teachers are able to use the free entry-level package or pay an annual fee (USD $ 75) for a premium portal to access the full range of features that are offered by the site. I would suggest that teachers use the free-entry level package as a pilot project to make sure that this portal matches their requirements before they commit to the premium package. The entry-level portal only offers a limited amount of features such as only accommodating 10 student accounts and limited webspace compared to that offered by the premium package. The features provided by the premium 21Classes include:
New features and updates are added to improve efficiency and usability.
6 Dos of Classroom Blogging
(adapted from: Sturgeon , J. (2008) Five Don'ts of Classroom Blogging. T.H.E. Journal; 35( 2), p.26-30)
Hi ladies,
I just thought I would let you know that I won't be able to access the wiki until Sunday as I am away. I hope there is nothing pressing you want me to do. Otherwise will be in contact Sunday onwards.
Thanks
Chris
I put this in so we can make changes and additions. (I did it a couple of days ago and made changes and it didn't save for some reason) Karyn
EDPD 5015 Group Assignment
Christina Dillon
Karyn Knowles
Nadine Sawnson
Manjula Gunawardena
Rationale:
To provide information for educators on how to use classroom blogs and integrated digital tools as a means of differentiating or making adjustments for students with diverse learning needs within their classrooms.
What about putting in a few quotes in that can be written in boxes to break up the text. e.g.
Some scholars suggest digital fluency will be another prerequisite for socialability, lifelong learning, and employment opportunities (Resnick (2000), cited in Huffaker, 2005, p. 93)
Written expression is the most prevalent of all disabilities and is the most complex language skill (Johnson, 1993, cited in Lauffer, 2000, p. 31)
Key Points:
Benefits of Blogging:
Having a class bog enables teachers to incorporate some of the principles of universal design into their instruction. For example, explanations for classroom tasks can be given both orally and in writing and can be read or listened to later. Students can access class information prior to or after class or contribute to class discussions at home. Options can be provided for further practice by teachers embedding relevant videos and adding links to learning objects or websites with interactive learning games. Learners can be provided with alternatives for demonstrating what they know, such as videos, podcasts and text. All students can be expected to participate, with the teacher faciltiating their participation as needed. Effective communication can be promoted by supplementing face-face contact with online communication. Teachers can create a welcoming environment for all students by responding to their posts and finding out more about students' interests. By thinking about universal design prior to teaching a unit of work teachers can anticipate students' needs rather than simply react to them. For example, to cater for students with limited vocabulary or background knowledge, images, videos or student-friendly definitions can be included in teacher posts or students can be directed to suitable online dictionaries or relevant websites. On class blogs students can interact with each other as well as the teacher. Feedback can easily be provided on classroom tasks.
Lesson Development:
Implementation:
Types of Blogs
Edublogs
BlogEd
Kidblog
Blogs by other teachers to inspire
http://year5rc.edublogs.org
http://ehpsblogs.com/year3/9/
Resource List:
Sturgeon, J. (2008). Five don'ts of classroom blogging. T.H.E.Journal, 35(2), 26-30
De Almeida Soares, D. (2008). Understanding class blogs as a tool for language development. Language Teaching Research, 12(4), 517-517-533.
Huffaker, D. (2005). The educated blogger: Using weblogs to promote literacy in the classroom. AACE Journal, 13(2), 91-98.
Mullen, R., & Wedwick, L. (2008). Avoiding the digital abyss: Getting started in the classroom with YouTube, digital stories, and blogs. The Clearing House, 82(2), 66-69.
Burk, A. M. (2010). Write that professional article! English Teaching Forum, 48(4), 12-17.
Clyde, L. A. (2005). Educational blogging. Teacher Librarian, 32(3), 43-45.
[DE1]This term is used in differing sates to mean adjustments. May wish to see how it used in differing states and territories.
[DE2]Feel you could make a bigger feature of this in your paper, but up to you.
[DE3]What about voice to text??
Link to text to speech sites
http://www.squidoo.com/text-speech-programs#module52828672
Notes from Chris: I will print all notes on the wiki to have a hard copy for everyone and perhaps we can just go through it tomorrow night and see if we can use any of it.
My research, just notes!!
- Written expression is the most prevalent of all disabilities and is the most complex language skill. (Johnson, 1993 cited in Lauffer,2000,p.31). A little dated!! but still relevant.
Areas of difficulty- Students with language learning difficulties encounter problems in idea generation, maturity of themes, organisation, grammar and theme development.
Reasons for using technology and different approaches todeveloping writing skills
- It is important that teachers establish classroom conditions and use pedagogical approaches so that the complex processes and social contexts of writing can be fully developed and supported. There are specific approaches that have been shown to be effective in improving student writing. Some of these include giving students more time to write in the classroom, using peer review and peer modeling to improve students' writing skills, helping students become aware of their readers by publishing their writing, and allowing students to practice different kinds of writing, including more informal free-writing, personal essays, and poetry.
(Ministry of Ed, 2003,pp.102-109)I think with blogs that there is more opportunity for peer modelling as everybody's work is published on the class blog for all to see. It can regularly be shown and discussed on the IWB. Also students can read the posts of other students, make a comment or ask questions which ecourages the writer to include all the relevant information and improve their writing.
Definition of a blog and what a blog can be, the benefits of using a blog.
- Weblogs Definition: A Web page consisting of short, frequently updated posts which allow users to publish, collaborate and share information and content over the internet.
(Pang, 2009, p.1)- Blogs can contain many different types of content:
Commentary/newsIdeas
Photos
Poetry
Mini essay
Project updates
Fiction
Media
Education
(Pang, 2009, pp.1-2)
The potential of blogs to improve writing ability:
Blogs have the potential to help improve the overall quality of students' written products. These written products include texts generated from sample writing prompts similar to those students may encounter such as poems, expressive writing, or journal entries. Using blogs in the classroom may also help students to better identity themselves as legitimate writers confident in their ability to compose in various contexts. Blogs may also increase the amount of a writing a student produces, both in terms of the length of specific compositions, as well as the number of pieces of writing that are produced.
- Blogging has value in terms of developing all sorts of critical thinking skills, writing skills, and information literacy among other things. Blogging offers students opportunities to write on a topic over an extended period of time, to reflect about what they write, and to engage readers and audiences in a sustained conversation. Engaging an audience of not only one's instructor and peers but also the larger, unknown audience on the web is motivating for students since the audience of readers is more authentic.
Research on KidblogFelix, J. ( 2007 ). Edublogging: Instruction for the Digital Age Learner. Published Ph.D., University of California.
Kidblog.org (2007). Retrieved August 10,2011 from http://kidblog.org/home.ph
Kids Learn to Blog (2007).Blogging for kids. Retrieved August 13, 2011 from http://kidslearntoblog.com/blogging-for-kids/
Ministry of Education.(2003).Effective Literacy Practice. Wellington: Author
Hi Guys,
This is the rough draft on Edublogs that I had in class last week. It is way too many words, too much info and it's not referenced properly. It is really just my begining research into edublogs and blogs in general. I still have not read all the great articles we have but should have in the next few day and will post any thoughts or ideas I get from them.
Nadine
Edublogs.org
Edublogs.org founded in 2005 by James Farmer can provide teachers and students, with freely available emerging technologies. Victorian schools use Edublogs as NSW schools use BlogEd. Teachers can use them as socially motivating tasks, forming a part of class activities and assignments. Blogs assist students to publish work, represent themselves online, interact with their peers as part of an organic community, and manage their own digital content and identity (Farmer, 2006). Other instructional applications to make note of include portfolios, student peer reviews, book reviews, online poetry, outside reviews, blogging artwork, learning reflections, international exchanges, past blogs, future blogs, writing development, team blogs, and year-end self-assessment
How to Use Edublogs
Edublogs.org is a blogging service specialising in blogs for educational institutions. The site is designed for students, teachers and educators, as well as entire schools, or universities. There is a Quick Press feature which allows users to quickly create a blog post with title, content and tags directly from the user's Dashboard. The Dashboard also allows the user to maintain users, manage posts and manage comments. Users can also change their blog's theme, add widgets and preview their blog from their Dashboard. Edublogs is a free blogging service for teachers, and other educational professionals. They have expanded their free blogging service to include narrower categories of education-related bloggers. They offer learnerblogs for school students, and eslblogs for those involved in teaching English as a second language and English as a foreign language.
Reasons to Use Edublogs
Collaboration
Blogging promotes a culture of collaboration. As a social networking tool, blogging helps connect friends, business partners, or other individuals together. This generation of students, has grown up in the Digital Age with aptitudes and attitudes different from their predecessors. These students turn first to the Internet for information and are comfortable interacting online with their peers; they work collaboratively and thrive on interactivity; and they have an expectation of immediacy from their instructors (Felix, 2007). Felix (2007) feels we must understand how learner sees themselves, decide on whether or not they are ready for a more inclusive type of instruction, and then begin instruction based on interaction. Blogging offers this interaction at whatever level of inclusion is most comfortable for the student or teacher and can be used as such at most grade levels.
Collaborative Learning
Advocates of collaborative learning assert that the active exchange of ideas within small groups not only increases interest among the participants but also promotes critical thinking, higher levels of thought, and longer periods of information retention (R. T. Johnson & Johnson, 1986; Totten et al., 1991).This instructional technique is also considered a key part of improving the teaching and learning of second language learners and culturally diverse students (Doherty et al., 2003; Duttweiler & Madden, 2001; Thernstrom & Thernstrom, 2003).
Promoting Writing through Blogging
As students put their ideas on paper, they often create new knowledge and develop awareness of new ideas, concepts, and relationships they did not have before they began the process of writing. The active nature of writing provides students with a means for exploring their thinking (Vygotsky, 1986). Writing will naturally broaden the concepts underlying the new words that ultimately become an enduring part of a child’s vocabulary. Writing especially helps to internalize difficult concepts that may otherwise go unlearned through minimum contact with key terms during reading (Pearce, 1984; Pearce & Davison, 1988).
Edubloggers can become empowered by the writing process to collaborate with other students in this writing process at school or at home. This collaboration seems to become a connection with the world. Students are excited at the prospect of communicating with other students inside or outside the classroom. This dual learning process appears to be very appealing to teachers as a way to create additional time for learning in the classroom. Teachers seem to believe blogging changes students from a rigid learning perspective into open-minded writers, highly motivated to not only perform the writing assignment, but also to collaborate with their peers.
How does blogging promote learning?
Helps Students find a voice
Another benefit to educational blogging (and wiki-writing) is the opportunity for the student to find a personal "voice" and to develop individual interests. Much like journal-writing, blogging gives wings to ideas that otherwise may can stay trapped in the mind.
Creates enthusiasm for writing and communications
It is not expected that all students will take to blogging (just as not all students enjoy writing), but it is believed that blogging has a unique ability to create enthusiasm for writing and the communication of ideas.
A national survey of bloggers by Pew Internet and American Life Project found that blogging is encouraging a new group of writers. 54% of the bloggers surveyed had never published their writing anywhere else.
Provides an opportunity to teach about responsible journalism
Because students who are posting blogs reach an audience with their posts, whereas a personal diary can be kept private, students have the opportunity in blogging to learn about the power of the published word. Whereas they might be tempted to criticise or make fun of someone in private conversation or in a diary, they can be taught about responsible journalism, and that the consequences of these kinds of remarks in the new world of the read/write web can be serious and long-lasting.
Hi Guys,
This DET document is called 'What staff need to no about social media and technology' It only has a little bit specifically about blogs but has a lot about using social media such as blogs safely e.g teaching students 'digital citizenship" and according to DET policies. Unfortunately my link does not seem to work but if you goolgle the link or the title it will come up.
http://det.nsw.edu.au/socialmedia
Nadine
Manjula
Is it ok if I insert what you typed up so we can add to it?
http://aisitic10.wikispaces.com/Edmodo
Hi Chris,
Above is a link to the wiki from last years ICT integrators conference, Henrietta is an amazingly inspirational Yr5 teacher at Roseville College.
Here is the class blog using edublogs.
http://year5rc.edublogs.org/
She is a huge advocate for using blogs in the classroom. Novel study groups (4 different novels in the class each term) with an online question to discuss on the blog for hwk eachnight.
Henrietta has her own online blog callled the Teacher Cronicles.
From Chris
- I also asked a few teachers at school about their experiences with blogging two responses thought it might be helpful.
Similar response to Suzannes email, yes Yr5 do blogs as part of their eportfolio on their own 1-to-1 laptop (using the application iweb).We have found that by using "sentence starter" strips (i will email scanned copies of these) the girls reflect more on their learning and are given a heads up with what to write on their blog. ie not just a recount of an event, but what did you learn? what did you find interesting? etc... So therefore the girls blogs are more a reflection / self-evaluation of their learning.
As Suzanne said, because the blog is on their own school laptop (rather than an external website e.g. edublogs, glogster or others) it is virtually impossible for the Yr5 teachers to sit with the girls to edit their blog. This is a downfall unfortunately. And something we are trying to overcome and look into where tracking, feedback or changes can be made. Cranbrook were using Weebly last year, however, as James Hagen pointed out the rules say you need to be over 13!
The weaker students enjoy blogging and blogging makes "writing" more fun if it incorporates IT. Blogging is part of their HWK at times too. Will send an example through.We always discuss orally before the girls go away and blog, this gives the weaker students a heads up. We try to use buddy or peer evaluation for assistance with editing at the end of the blogging session or when the HWK task is due.
I have forwarded some emails with what I think are really good examples of how Primary Schools are using blogs. Leopol Primary use blogs for other students in the school to comment on their work / blog entries. This takes blogging to another level and is what I feel would make it more useful and fun rather than just being a personal reflection on their own computer.
Blogs are presented to the class on the activboard, shared with other grades in a buddy situation or screenshots are sometimes included in assemblies or on Kview. The girls sometimes have a choice of items / events to include on their blog. This allows for differientiation and choice. e.g we same over Sem1 you must include at least 5 blogs. Yr6 are doing alot of work on blogs at the moment. I dont know much about it though. I think they are involved in a grant. This is linked to feedback.
From Karyn
With bloged the teacher is the manager and the blog is usually a class blog that everyone contributes to. Bog managers can send posts back to students on their email to be edited. I tend to edit before approving posts if I think the students have tried to edit because I am trying encourage them to write anything at the moment. As students become more confident and experienced I will send posts back to be edited. I noticed with my own daughter that she wasn't too bothered about punctuation in blog posts but when handwriting her punctuation is good. Part of the reason for having a blog is to share your writing with others and to have a real audience. At my school the blogs are not public but we have some blogs that all the students and teachers can see and anyone can comment. The comments go through the manager who decides whether to approve them. I think they allow for differentation because all students can write at their level. Students who are quiet and reluctant to speak are often the ones who write the most.
- Just in case we need it ! Will print a copy off.
http://k6.boardofstudies.nsw.edu.au/files/english/k6literacy_int.pdfI put this in to make sure we are on the right track! (Karyn)
Assignment 5.2.2 Practically Speaking
The aim of this asignment is to develop a piece of work (1250 words including references) that highlights an effective educational practice and how it can be adjusted to meets the needs of students with diverse learning needs. This piece of work needs to be written in a manner tha is concise, informative and one your peers would pick up and read (i.e., you are writing for an audience)
- Meet with your group and commence reviewing your topic
- Outline key features of your topic, locate literature that will assist you develop your paper.
- Review similiar articles (e.g. material from Teaching Exceptional Children, Special Education Perspectives)
- Prepare in dot point (1 page only)
- aim of your paper
To encourage teachers to use class blogs and integrate digital tools into their lessons and suggest ways of differentiating for students with diverse learning needs.????- Increase in engagement and achievement e.g. Are students more motivated to write? Do they write more often? Does writing improve? (Find evidence!)
- Competence level of students e.g. Reading level required for reading websites, moving around blogs, computer skills e.g. typing, computer terminology, following instructions
- Teacher professional learning eg. look at other class blogs, find how to videos on youtube and websites, networking e.g. maang (Dept Ed & Communities),
twitter, wikispaces4.Differentiation e.g. student friendly tutorials, computer buddy system within the class or school, pre-teaching vocabulary and practising reading key words on flashcards, have key inforamtion on laminated cards e.g. user names and passwords, key words, instructions to follow with screen grabs (this is how I learnt how to navigate the technology at my old school The computer coordinator and DP both had the skills to make up how to posters and instruction booklets)
Benefits of new media - enable collaborative approaches to reading and writing.
Sudents can be involved in active learning, hands on projects then take photos or make videos and write about what they have experienced.
visuals help all students to understand
provide an opportunity to continue learning outside the classroom. Teachers are assigning homework that needs to be completed on their class blog. Equity issue? Some students don't have access to a computer at home.
ideas can be shared and exchanged
questions can be posed and answered
social cohesion among classmates is developed
blogs can be used to promote reading and writing
showcase the work of students
"Some scholars suggest digital fluency will be another prerequisite for sociability, lifelong learning, and employment opportunites (Resnick (2002),cited in Huffaker, 2005, p.93 )
Here is an example of a video tutorial for kindergarten made by my daughter's K teacher. Not everyone would want to spend that much time making a video tutorial for their class though.
https://www.det.nsw.edu.au/blog/482897-ksonline2010/entry/photoshop_elements_fun
From Chris
We use the apple site for our lap top program at school.
http://www.apple.com/students/
This is a collection of different sites to support students learning on the internet.
http://futureofchildren.org/futureofchildren/publications/docs/10_02_04.pdf
http://www.schoollink.org/twin/MoreWebSites.htm
http://www.tekmom.com/buzzwords/#SearchBox
www.kids-online.net/learn/dictionary.html
http://www.teachingideas.co.uk/welcome/start.htm (I thought this was good! It also includes games and info for kids to use whilst they are learning to use the internet and also includes e-safety)
http://cybersmartcurriculum.org/lessonsbygrade/ (again this is very cyber safety related - but some interactive activities for students)
http://www.teachingkidscomputers.com/index2.html (this is full of lesson plans and ideas for teaching kids to use computers. Whilst it isn't focussed on the language of technology, the language and ideas for supporting this learning are seen throughout the compact lesson plans)
http://www.copacabana-p.schools.nsw.edu.au/Get_Smart_Pages/
http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/ks3bitesize/science/
http://www.kidsknowit.com/
www.studyladder.com.au.webloc
http://www.writingfun.com/writingfun2010.html
http://teachfind.com/national-strategies/puzzles-and-problems-years-1-and-2
http://www.firstschoolyears.com/about/general.htm
Class Blogs
Epping Heights
http://ehpsblogs.com/year3/9/
Belmore South Public School
Kinder blog
5/6 Blog
Teacher Reference
I like this glogster for inspiration
http://sunrise651.edu.glogster.com/what-do-they-need
http://cooltoolsforschools.wikispaces.com/
https://www.det.nsw.edu.au/blog/115628-schooltools/
http://www.internet4classrooms.com/on-line.htm
This wiki is from my local DEC region and has lots of ideas
www.teachingictk12.wikispaces.com
Primary English Teachers Association
http://www.elit.edu.au/
Podcasting
http://www.voki.com/
students can create an avatar and record a message, information, speech, poem etc
Can be embedded in blogs
Books and articles
Comber, B. & Kamler, B. (2005) Turn-around pedagogies Literacy Interventions for At-risk students Primary English Teaching Association
e:update 017 Engaging students in literacy learning with interactive whiteboards Goodwin, K. (see list of online literacy resources on e:lit website)
Professional Associations
Walsh, M. (2011) Multimodal Literacy Researching Classroom Practice Primary English Teachers Association
By beginning of week 4: Submit overview of paper in class.
More Readings that might be helpful ( Manjula)
aids language.pdf
sample articles on blogs.pdf
webtools.pdf
educational blogs.pdf
5 donts of blogging.pdf